This seems to me that she was mostly using words which are offensive, but frequently used outside of their intended meaning. Definitely language I wouldn't use myself. But for example, "that's gay" has been relatively often used as an insult/derogatory, inadvertently by people not intending to be homophobic.
I'd definitely call out it's use today, but I'm not sure I'd hunt someone down and try to ruin their career over them using language they shouldn't have five years ago.
Nobody has had their career ruined. She's just had a job offer at one of the most prestigious and influential sources of opinion writing change their mind about hiring her.
It seems to me poor and distasteful use of language is a pretty reasonable reason to not want someone in that position.
There are plenty of outlets for idiot 4chan style insults in the world, I'm not sure we really need people from that community holding one of the top positions in tech journalism and opinion writing.
I mostly agree but it's also understandable on the part of the NYT. She wasn't really even on board yet so this probably counts as one of those battles that isn't worth fighting even if they they wanted to.
Not that it really pertains in this case, but personally, I'm pretty glad that there was no social media prior to my being an established adult professional in a role that made me very aware anything I wrote was out there for all to see and interpret.
Indeed. I don't think Norton is a racist/homephobe, I do think she made poor choices with her social media presence for her career. And while I don't think she should lose her job because of five year old tweets that aren't the greatest, I understand where NYTimes would be at: Their first and foremost responsibility is to their brand and reputation.
>Their first and foremost responsibility is to their brand and reputation
Right. People with no skin in the game often want companies to do the right/heroic/etc. thing. Even leaving aside what the appropriate action in this particular case is, the reality is that when there's a mob or the likelihood of one that wants your head, your employer is probably going to think about it for about 10 seconds and then toss you off the deck. "It's just business" as Bill Belichick would put it. We can all think of plenty other examples over the past few years.
The NYT shows an ever more feeble understanding of brand and reputation in this age - Quinn's writing and public commentary really shouldn't come as a surprise to them, any more than going to a talk by Brenda Laurel and having her call out questions with 'Yo' and shoot down bad questions with 'That's a stupid * question' - I don't always agree with her, but I have always seen her as authentic (both of those fine women, actually)
I wasn't familiar with her before this. But it certainly seems as if they didn't do their homework before hiring someone potentially controversial into a rather visible role (given that they apparently didn't want someone who could be controversial).
Yeah, if what Quinn says comes as any great surprise to you, well, that's just sad. Pity too, she can be funny as hell - and I'd have probably signed up for NYT instead of just going in anon
In her own words via Twitter: “I retweeted @JPBarlow using offensive language in a sarcastic tweet that was meant to slap back at racists after Obama's first election. Eh, not my best retweet, even if the intentions, both mine and Barlow's, were in the right place.”
Reading the RT itself, I think it’s clear she is AGAINST racism.
Wasn't that was a retweet (the good ole-fashioned retweet, starting with "RT")? It looks like it was a retweet from John Barlow, the founder of the EFF.
And it was definitely sarcastic, in nature. If you remove the loaded language, it's a bit easier to parse, I think: "If a black man was meant to talk to our schoolchildren, God would've made one President. Oh, wait, he did."
Ergo, a black man was, indeed, meant to talk to our schoolchildren.
That's exactly how I interpreted it as well. It is unwise to use slurs regardless of intent, because people are sensitive to them and rightly so. But her intent in using them was not to hurt or belittle.
You shouldn't remove it because it was a retweet, you should have removed it because it clearly meant the opposite of what you were implying it meant. Plenty often people get lampooned for statements that are later divorced from content but you are taking a single word and divorcing it from the content of the sentence it's in.
I'd definitely call out it's use today, but I'm not sure I'd hunt someone down and try to ruin their career over them using language they shouldn't have five years ago.